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54-556: The Lusty Lady is a pair of defunct peep show establishments, one in downtown Seattle and one in the North Beach district of San Francisco. The Lusty Lady was made famous by the labor activism of its San Francisco workers and the publication of several books about working there. The Seattle Lusty Lady, known originally as the Amusement Center, was opened in the 1970s by two business associates, who soon after opened

108-565: A peeping tom in the Lusty Lady who had climbed up from a viewing booth into the ceiling crawl space overhead, then partly crashed through the glass ceiling above the stage. On April 11, 2010, the Lusty Lady in Seattle announced that it would close its doors for business in June 2010. The economic climate and the rise of Internet pornography were cited as reasons for closing. On June 28, 2010,

162-599: A "double in the bubble" show in which two performers worked simultaneously. During the winter of 1997 to 1998, the business had thirty-five performers. At this time, over 80% of performers there attempted to unionize and "signed union authorization cards for representation by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 790". The business was owned by Bijou Group, Inc., a privately held company in San Francisco that

216-561: A 360-degree view of Lake Union and downtown Seattle. The gallery is curated by the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society which has maintained a close partnership with MOHAI since the early 1950s. The museum opened a major museum addition on October 11, 2013 called the Bezos Center for Innovation . The project is funded by a $ 10 million gift from Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos . The project

270-459: A full historic restoration of the facility, uncovering both the original ceiling and floor and conducting massive safety, accessibility, and systems upgrades. The project also included centralizing MOHAI's library and collections departments in a warehouse in the Georgetown neighborhood. In June 2012 the museum closed its Montlake location. Six months later, on December 29, 2012, the museum held

324-600: A lack of funding for restoration. The Walker Gallery is MOHAI's main space for displaying temporary and traveling exhibits. It takes up the entire southern side of the museum's second floor. When the museum initially opened at Lake Union Park, the Walker Gallery showcased an exhibit about Seattle's relationship with film called Celluloid Seattle: A City at the Movies. In 2015, the Walker Gallery hosted American Spirits: The Rise & Fall of Prohibition travelling from

378-546: A legal battle to shut down the Times Square peep shows. Following a major legal decision in Giuliani's favor in 1998, the peep shows mostly closed. The former Lusty Lady peep show in Seattle, Washington, was, unlike its namesake in San Francisco, not unionized. Similar to the Lusty Lady in San Francisco, however, the Seattle peep show was deemed an iconic local landmark by the time it finally closed in 2010. Its closing

432-572: A peep show booth with a clear window and seating space for only one spectator. Research on peep show establishments in California examined the hypothesis that neighborhoods surrounding sex businesses such as peep show establishments and X-rated movie stores have higher rates of crime. The researchers compared 911 calls in peep show and control neighborhoods in San Diego. Although peep show neighborhoods had approximately 16 percent more calls,

486-546: A public grand opening for its new home in South Lake Union. MOHAI's core exhibit rings most of the building's second floor and provides a chronological history of Seattle and its environs. The exhibit winds through a series of 22 different sections that each focus on a distinct event or era in Seattle history ranging from pre-Pioneer settlements up to the modern day. MOHAI Creative Director Ann Farrington, who previously worked on Seattle's Experience Music Project and

540-405: A revenue of about $ 27,000 per week in the first half of 2006. After the change in ownership, the union was retained, but some changes in management were instituted. While dancers had been regularly evaluated by managers before, now a peer review process was established wherein dancers evaluate each other. The team leaders are elected from among the dancers for six-month terms. A dispute began in

594-401: A stage upon which usually a female performer performs a striptease and sexually explicit poses. In Barcelona female performers at times also perform sexual intercourse with male performers on stage. In some cases, booths include paper towel dispensers for customers who engage in masturbation. A customer and performer can mutually agree on a fee for a "private dance", which can take place in

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648-489: A stripper and graduate student in English. Other cooperatives provided input, among them the worker-owned San Francisco sex-toy business Good Vibrations . The workers bought the club for $ 400,000, with money borrowed from the old owners. In 1996, the club had had a revenue of almost $ 3 million; by 2003 this had fallen by 40%. The monthly rent was $ 13,442 in 2003 and had doubled over the preceding three years. The club had

702-573: A visit to the Seattle Lusty Lady. The theater show My Time With the Lady is a first-person account about working at the Lusty Lady by a long-time janitor and bouncer . It opened in Seattle in August 2010. 37°47′51″N 122°24′20″W  /  37.79750°N 122.40556°W  / 37.79750; -122.40556 The San Francisco Lusty Lady was located at 1033 Kearny Street , in

756-525: A worker-owned cooperative. On its website, the Lusty Lady describes a worker-owned business as "a rare and ideal situation" but "not without its challenges" and discusses how the workers address these challenges. On Tuesday, August 20, 2013, the Lusty Lady in San Francisco announced that it would close its doors for business in just two weeks, on Monday at 3:00 am. September 2, 2013. The landlord, Roger Forbes (part of Deja Vu Consulting Inc. which by that time owned almost every strip club in San Francisco with

810-567: Is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums and is a Smithsonian affiliate museum. In 1911, Morgan and Emily Carkeek hosted the first annual Founder's Day party at their home, which was an invitation-only event where guests dressed in historic costumes and brought artifacts and documents related to early Seattle. An outcome of these parties was the establishment of the Seattle Historical Society in 1914,

864-566: The 1919 Boeing B-1 ; the Petticoat Flag , a U.S. flag sewn by women during the 1856 Battle of Seattle ; and the Rainier Brewing Company's 12-foot tall neon "R" sign. In addition to both permanent and temporary exhibits, MOHAI administers ongoing youth and adult programming, and regularly hosts public events in partnership with other community organizations, particularly within the South Lake Union neighborhood. MOHAI

918-456: The Broadway strip club district of North Beach . It was open 24 hours a day, though the live stage was closed between 3 and 11 am. Several grievances led to the unionizing effort in 1997. African American feminist sociologist Siobhan Brooks while working at the club had noticed that African American dancers were discriminated against and filed a complaint. The precipitating event was

972-624: The National Constitution Center . Another temporary gallery that occupies the third floor space of the museum. Much smaller than the Walker Gallery, the space is designed "to promote community ownership and stewardship of MOHAI" by showcasing collaborative projects with community partners. The first exhibit in the gallery was a partnership with leading Seattle arts group Arts Corps , that worked with Seattle high school students to produce poetry and spoken word related to photos from MOHAI's historic photographic collection. On

1026-529: The National Holocaust Museum , has said that it is, "not a timeline, but a series of stories strung like pearls" in order to reveal how Seattle's past, present, and future are interconnected. Along with numerous artifacts and photographs, the exhibit incorporates a significant amount of interactive media that allow visitors to touch screens or play games that explore different parts of Seattle history and culture. The core exhibit also includes

1080-557: The 1970s and moved to its final location at 1315 First Avenue in downtown Seattle near Pike Place Market in 1985. The club was well known for its frequently changing and often amusing marquee announcements. The Lusty Lady is immediately across the street from the Seattle Art Museum and the marquee often commented on current exhibits or the Hammering Man statue. Mimi Gates , stepmother of Bill Gates and director of

1134-524: The 1980s included developing new exhibits and reaching out to underrepresented communities, which were a shock to older staff and board members. During the 1990s the museum gradually recovered from these internal challenges, as well as financial ones, and began expanding educational and community outreach programs. The impending reconstruction of State Route 520 and the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge forced MOHAI to move from

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1188-440: The 1990s. Female performers would stand undressed on a small semicircular or circular stage surrounded by individual booths. By inserting a token into a machine, a patron could open the opaque partitions separating them from the stage. He could then choose a performer and, for the payment of a small tip, summon her and fondle her sexually or ask her to perform sex acts on him. After taking office as mayor in 1994, Rudy Giuliani waged

1242-606: The Great Fire Theatre, a "Gilbert and Sullivan-style opera" that involves artifacts from the 1889 Great Seattle Fire singing the story of the event over a film of historic images, and the Joshua Green Foundation Theater which plays a 7-minute film about Seattle culture on two large screens. The first floor of the museum is an expansive open room named the Faye G. Allen Grand Atrium. Both

1296-532: The Lusty Lady in 1997, completed graduate school and returned in 2000 to write a book about stripping in general and her experiences in particular, Bare: On Women, Dancing, Sex, and Power , published in 2002. The Seattle Lusty Lady was featured in the 1992 film American Heart . The first murder in the 1996 pilot of the TV series Millennium takes place in a Seattle peep show modeled on the Lusty Lady. Episode 18 (first aired 1997) of HBO 's Real Sex series featured

1350-647: The Lusty Lady marquee was removed from the Seattle location. It was acquired by the Museum of History & Industry and is now on display at their museum in the South Lake Union neighborhood. In the wake of the Lusty Lady announcing its shutdown, the NPR program All Things Considered did a story focusing on the peep show's history and relationship to the broader downtown Seattle community. In March 2023, Andrew Conru , founder of Friend Finder Networks , bought

1404-567: The Lusty Lady's building for $ 3 million, calling the purchase "a gift to the city". He intended to redevelop it into a hotel, a strip club, a restaurant, a museum, a retail store, or some other concern, soliciting ideas from the public. In June 2023, Conru's architect submitted plans to the city to raze the building. "Unfortunately for safety reasons it is a teardown. We looked at a seismic retrofit. It's just not going to happen," said Conru, who said that costs motivated his decision. The 1997 book The Lusty Lady by photographer Erika Langley documents

1458-717: The Lusty Lady, in her 2003 book Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of a Sex-Positive Culture . Bernadette Barton interviewed dancers at the Lusty Lady in her 2006 book Stripped: Inside the Lives of Exotic Dancers. Jennifer Worley worked at the Lusty Lady as a graduate student and participated in the unionization of the venue and its later transformation into a worker co-op later wrote about her experiences in her 2020 memoir Neon Girls: A Stripper's Education in Protest and Power . Peep show Several historical media provided voyeuristic entertainment through hidden erotic imagery. Before

1512-769: The Montlake site. After exploring options to move near the Washington State Convention Center , MOHAI and the City of Seattle agreed to move MOHAI to the Naval Reserve Armory in what was soon to be Lake Union Park. At that time, the building was being managed by the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department and was in need of significant repairs to be usable as a public museum space. Through a $ 90 million capital campaign, MOHAI did

1566-607: The Seattle Art Museum, said "The Lusty Lady's marquee is a Seattle landmark." Nirvana ’s logo was also inspired by the happy face logo there, which said, "Have An Erotic Day!" In 2006, the building's owner, a Seattle family, refused a multimillion-dollar tear-down offer from developers of a new Four Seasons Hotel next door. The owners instead received $ 850,000 "for air rights to the views over their property". Employees celebrated by posting on their reader board: "We're Open, Not Clothed!" In January 2010, police arrested

1620-410: The country. Former Lusty Lady employee Siobhan Brooks commented in a 1997 article that "In some cases the media misquoted us as being the first strip club to unionize. But the first strip club to unionize was Pacer's in San Diego. However, Pacer's union, Hotel Management, Employee Management, Local 30, negotiated an open clause in its contract. Open shop means there's no requirement that employees join

1674-463: The development of the cinema in 1895, motion pictures were presented in peep boxes , such as the kinetoscope and the mutoscope . These remained relatively popular for erotic and pornographic films, such as What the Butler Saw . In contemporary use, a peep show is a piecewise presentation of pornographic films or a live sex show which is viewed through a viewing slot, which shuts after

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1728-482: The employees, the business was organized by the Exotic Dancers Union, an affiliate of Service Employees International Union , then a member of AFL–CIO , Local 790. The Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network (BAYSWAN) provided website support for the workers' unionization effort, which helped to garner public support for the workers as well as inquiries from other exotic dancers and sex workers throughout

1782-495: The exception of Crazy Horse, Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theatre , and Nob Hill) refused to renew the lease after attempts to re-negotiate the rent failed. Lily Burana , who stripped for a time at the San Francisco Lusty Lady, wrote about her experiences there and in other strip clubs in her 2001 book Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America . Carol Queen also wrote about her time dancing at

1836-538: The first U.S. sex business to be unionized . In 2003 it was bought by the employees and became a worker cooperative . It closed due to increased rent in 2013. In Las Vegas in the early 1990s, city authorities began to move peep shows and other sexually oriented businesses away from the city centre. The last peep show in Las Vegas closed in 2019. Times Square in New York was famous for its peep shows up until

1890-553: The hallways. In February 2002, both peep shows featured a video art exhibition called "Peepshow 28", with one channel in all video booths devoted to showing a sequence of 64 short videos exploring voyeurism, exhibitionism and sexuality. Dancers were paid an hourly wage. (The top wage for dancers in Seattle in 2001 was $ 27 per hour, the top wage in San Francisco in 2003 was $ 26 per hour.) 47°36′24.8″N 122°20′18.5″W  /  47.606889°N 122.338472°W  / 47.606889; -122.338472 The Seattle Lusty Lady opened in

1944-421: The industry stated that closure of the peep show was done as a retaliative measure against attempts for performers to unionize. The company declared bankruptcy after performers made a second attempt at unionization, whereby the performers "signed cards calling for a union election", and the theater was closed. The former Lusty Lady peep show in San Francisco, California, entered the news in 1997, when it became

1998-402: The installation of one-way mirrors in a number of booths (which also exist in the Seattle branch), resulting in some customers taking photos and videos of the show. Among the leaders of the organizing drive was the stripper Julia Query who documented the efforts on video, resulting in the documentary Live Nude Girls Unite! , written and directed by Vicky Funari and Julia Query. After a vote of

2052-585: The largest private heritage organization in Washington state , maintaining a collection of nearly four million artifacts, photographs, and archival materials primarily focusing on Seattle and the greater Puget Sound region. A portion of this collection (roughly 2% at any given time) is on display in the museum's galleries at the historic Naval Reserve Armory in Lake Union Park . The museum's keynote exhibits include: Boeing's first commercial plane,

2106-459: The main stage and in one-on-one booths. The main stage featured several nude women dancing, separated by glass windows from the customers who each stood in their own booth, paying by the minute. The dancers were also available for more explicit private shows in the VIP and Private Pleasures booths. These were also glass-separated private booths where customers could give direction to the show and tipping

2160-553: The membership of which was limited to white settlers and their descendants. The Seattle Historical Society lacked a building to house the museum. Several attempts to find a permanent location were abandoned because of challenging financial circumstances, especially during the Depression, and the fact that the original society members were aging and new members were not joining. The collection continued to grow, however. In 1945, Boeing offered $ 50,000 towards an aviation wing, and over

2214-514: The neon Rainier "R" sign, a clam costume from Seattle seafood chain Ivar's , and a stuffed cougar donated by Eddie Bauer , founder of the namesake clothing store. The north end of the Grand Atrium features a 64-foot-tall sculpture called Wawona by local artist John Grade. Wood and other materials for the sculpture were salvaged from the 1897 schooner Wawona , which was dismantled in 2009 due to

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2268-418: The news in 1997 when it became the first (and as of 2009 only) successfully unionized sex business in the U.S. (The San Diego strip club Pacer's had seen a unionization effort in the early 1990s, but it was short-lived.) The Seattle branch closed in June 2010. The San Francisco branch closed at 3 a.m. on September 2, 2013, on Labor Day. The Lusty Lady featured exotic dancers in a peep show setting on

2322-535: The next five years, the Society procured a site in Montlake. During this time, the Society became a more public and civic-minded institution, opening up the Founder's Day event to community and service organizations. The new museum opened in 1952. Over the last 50 years, management practices of the museum and collections, membership, and the relationship to its immediate surroundings, have been problematic. Changes in

2376-525: The original floor and ceiling of the Naval Reserve Building are visible from the Grand Atrium. Hanging in the center of the space is the 1919 Boeing B-1 , the first commercial plane built by Bill Boeing . The plane is displayed to illustrate a typical flight path onto Lake Union, where the plane took off and landed during its tenure. On the south end of the Grand Atrium is a three-story tall-grid filled with Seattle cultural icons, including

2430-416: The other location in San Francisco. Originally, both Lusty Ladys showed 16mm peep show films only; in 1983 live nude dancers were added and became the main focus of the businesses. Until 2003 they were both owned by the same company; in that year the San Francisco franchise was bought by the strippers working there and began to be managed as a worker cooperative . The San Francisco branch had already entered

2484-575: The researchers concluded that the difference was not statistically significant. Other researchers reanalyzed the data and concluded that the difference was significant. Regal Show World was an adult entertainment business on lower Market Street in San Francisco, California . The company's slogan was "Where you are king". The business had a peep show and an adult video arcade . The peep show had performers working in an enclosed round room with viewing booths surrounding it and sometimes had

2538-426: The summer of 2006 when a male employee wrote a confidential email to the co-op board, reporting customer complaints about a show featuring heavy women. Another member of the board, a dancer, posted a printout of the message in the club dressing room, causing considerable consternation among dancers. Both board members were suspended. Two of the male employees have argued that the union should be abandoned as not useful in

2592-592: The time paid for has expired. The viewing slots can be operated by a money box device, or paid for at a counter. Pornographic peep shows became popular in the 1970s as part of the developing pornography industry. Until home video became widespread, peep shows made up a major part of the way in which video pornography was accessed. In 1986 a US Presidential report into pornography said that peep shows were making significant earnings which were often undeclared or untaxed, and in some US locations peep shows were subsequently suppressed. For live peep shows, booths can surround

2646-406: The top floor of the museum is a small gallery dedicated to Seattle's maritime history. The space was originally designed as a replica of a ship's bridge in order to train naval recruits during World War II and features a set of south facing windows overlooking Lake Union . One of the most popular artifacts in the gallery is a working World War II-era TANG periscope from a naval submarine which offers

2700-403: The union, so the club recruited workers and discouraged them from joining the union and were able to decertify the union." After management cut hourly compensation at the San Francisco Lusty Lady in 2003, the workers struck and won, but the closure of the peep show was announced soon after. The subsequent efforts to turn the club into a worker cooperative were led by Donna Delinqua (stage name),

2754-414: The work in the Seattle branch of Lusty Lady. It includes photos by Langley (who had worked there as a dancer since 1992) as well as essays by a number of Lusty Lady dancers, who vary considerably in their attitudes toward their customers and toward their work. In 2000, some of the photos were exhibited in the Seattle Art Museum , across the street from the Lusty Lady. Elisabeth Eaves , who had stripped at

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2808-456: Was attributed to being unable to compete with pornography on the Internet. American singer Madonna plays a peep show dancer in the video for her song Open Your Heart . Regal Show World Museum of History %26 Industry The Museum of History & Industry ( MOHAI ) is a history museum in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, Washington , United States. It is

2862-491: Was founded in 1990. Bijou Group owned similar businesses in San Francisco such as New Century Theater, Market Street Cinema , and the Campus Theater. Bijou Group, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization c.  1994 . In November 1998, management of Regal Show World announced that the peep show would be closed on November 30 of that month due to "economic reasons". At the time, some performers in

2916-542: Was possible. Rates for shows varied by the dancer. The Private Pleasures booth also occasionally featured "Double Trouble" shows, with two dancers who might have performed a lesbian sex show . In addition, booths showing adult videos 24/7 were available. Once a year, The Lusty Lady SF organized a "Play Day": the dancers came out from behind the glass, explained the operation of the club to customers, and allowed behind-the-scenes peeks. Lusty Lady occasionally featured "art days", exhibiting erotic photographs and paintings in

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